The Supreme Court has defended the September 6 verdict of the Nigerian presidential election tribunal which affirmed Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the democratically elected president of Nigeria, a judgment that was the end of the road to Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi’s quest to unseat Tinubu.
Tinubu won the February 25 presidential election with 37 per cent of the votes, according to official results by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, extending the rule of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, came in second having polled 29 per cent of the votes while Labour Party’s Obi finished third place with 25 per cent of votes casts in his favour.
The PDP and LP candidates went to court to annul the results, alleging that there was massive vote rigging and that INEC reneged on its word to transmit results live from polling units electronically, among other things.
After the Court of Appeal failed to overturn Tinubu’s election last month, the aggrieved parties headed to the Supreme Court in high hopes that the apex court would overrule the judgement of the lower court.
But on Thursday, October 26, a seven-member panel of jurists ruled otherwise by upholding the earlier judgement.
“The judgement of the court below delivered on September 6, 2023, affirming the election of the second respondent as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is hereby affirmed,” the court ruled.
The judges unanimously dismissed the appeals for being “bereft of merit.”
“On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the appellant, it is my view that there is no merit in the appeal and it is hereby dismissed,” Justice Okoro Inyang, the chairperson of the court panel, ruled on Abubakar’s appeal.
On Obi’s appeal, the Judge held that “It is our decision that this appeal shall abide with the decision in that of Atiku.”
President Bola Tinubu, Abubakar and Obi were absent during the court session which lasted for about four hours.
With the decision of the Supreme Court, it is expected that the dust will settle on the 2023 presidential election in the coming days.
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